EAST PEORIA — The City Council heard a laundry list of recommended budget cuts at a special working session Tuesday to plug a $1.7 million gap between projected revenues and expenditures for city services.

The council will hold a hearing and then vote on the $35.8 million budget, up $1.5 million from the current year’s budget, at its regular meeting on Tuesday. The 2014-2015 fiscal year begins May 1.

To reach the projected $1.5 million shortfall, the revised budget includes about $1 million in reductions to city department budgets, $282,000 moved into the city’s gaming fund and another $315,000 in revenue enhancements from net sales tax and state income taxes.

“This was our best effort to go back through (the budget) with a sort of give-and-take with department heads, mostly take, so that we could arrive at a balanced budget,” said Commissioner Gary Densberger. With a $710,000 increase in salaries, health benefits and pension funds for next year, “It’s sort of hard to keep up on the revenue side an expenditure increase of that magnitude.”

New positions will be lost to the process. The city had hoped to hire a second human resources professional, a new emergency dispatcher and a third vehicle mechanic and a new position in the street department, but those three positions were eliminated in the recommendations.

Other cuts included almost $100,000 for street paving and resurfacing, maintenance and repair of storm drains and street repair maintenance and repair.

Commissioner Dan Decker warned the council about cutting too deeply in the street department budget.

“We’re creating a larger problem for ourselves each year we don’t spend an appropriate amount of money (on East Peoria streets),” Decker said.

While all of the sources of revenue showed an increase from the previous year, the increases were smaller than projected in some — $400,000 smaller in gaming revenues — and were not in total enough to cover the city’s expenses.

Mayor Dave Mingus thanked city staff for “tightening your belts.”

Scott Hilyard can be reached at 686-3244 or by email at shilyard@pjstar.com. Follow @scotthilyard on Twitter.